{"id":86321,"date":"2024-07-17T15:34:39","date_gmt":"2024-07-17T19:34:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=86321"},"modified":"2024-07-17T15:34:39","modified_gmt":"2024-07-17T19:34:39","slug":"bucks-key-player-major-offseason-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/07\/17\/bucks-key-player-major-offseason-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"Key Bucks Player Makes Major Offseason Decision"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After an arduous 2023-24 campaign, Milwaukee Bucks veteran <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/middlkh01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Khris Middleton<\/a> has \u201cunderwent two successful arthroscopic clean-up procedures <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/5643947\/2024\/07\/17\/khris-middleton-surgery-milwaukee-bucks\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">to fix lingering issues this offseason<\/a>,\u201d per The Athletic\u2019s Shams Charania.<\/p>\n<p>The 12-year veteran missed 19 games with a left ankle injury last season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShortly after the playoffs, Middleton underwent surgery on his left ankle\u2026,\u201d Charania reports. \u201c\u2026 The procedure cleaned up some of the lingering damage that stemmed from the left ankle sprain Middleton suffered on Feb. 6&#8230;\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Khris Middleton heading to the locker room after this play with Kevin Durant. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/w6HJoEupHs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/w6HJoEupHs<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Player Rizz Magazine (@PlayerRizz) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PlayerRizz\/status\/1755070751474856052?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 7, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Middleton \u201calso needed a minor arthroscopic procedure to clean up a lingering issue in his right ankle,\u201d Charania adds. \u201cThat surgery occurred in mid-June.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Bucks\u2019 Khris Middleton Makes Major Offseason Decision<\/h2>\n<p>Every player hopes to avoid surgery. With that being said, Middleton deciding to have multiple operations this offseason wasn\u2019t taken lightly.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, though players have been known to play with gnarled feet (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a>) or fingers (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mariosh01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shawn Marion<\/a>). Still, they simply can\u2019t consistently perform up to their standards with bum ankles. In fact, speaking of James, the 39-year-old\u2019s ankles are a bigger factor in <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/02\/19\/lebron-james-battle-father-time-eye-opening-update\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">his feelings about retirement<\/a> than his age.<\/p>\n<p>In any case, Middleton performed well enough in the 2024 NBA Playoffs to alleviate some concern about how he\u2019ll look when he returns.<\/p>\n<p>Stepping up <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/02\/bucks-get-bittersweet-news-ahead-elimination-game\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">in the absence<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/antetgi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a>, the 32-year-old averaged 24.7 points, 9.2 rebounds, and 4.7 assists per game while shooting 48.2 percent from the floor. Middleton does tend go raise his game in the playoffs. Over the past two seasons, he\u2019s averaged 15.1 points per game in the regular season but 24.3 points per game in the postseason. Nonetheless, it\u2019s notable he was moving pretty well on offense despite having recently returned from an ankle injury.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Khris Middleton 42 pts 10 rebs 5 asts vs Pacers 2024 PO G3\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pH6SN10D7ZM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Being past his physical prime has still diminished his defensive ability though.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s capable of slowing down opponents. With his length, foundational strength, and basketball IQ, Middleton could still have made a positive impact at that end. Yet, he\u2019s more likely to allow perimeter penetration. Of course, going into 2024-25 with two ankle injuries would\u2019ve only exacerbated that issue.<\/p>\n<h3>When Will He Return?<\/h3>\n<p>According to Charania, Middleton \u201cwas walking without pain or discomfort when he visited his teammates in Las Vegas for summer league action Saturday afternoon.\u201d \u00a0Having \u201calready started light court work\u2026 he is expected to be ready for the start of the 2024-25 season.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Considering his current progress, Middleton may be ready for training camp as well. If so, that\u2019ll be a best-case scenario for the Bucks, as they still need to maximize the chemistry of their Big 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After an arduous 2023-24 campaign, Milwaukee Bucks veteran Khris Middleton has \u201cunderwent two successful arthroscopic clean-up procedures to fix lingering issues this offseason,\u201d per The Athletic\u2019s Shams Charania. The 12-year veteran missed 19 games with a left ankle injury last season. \u201cShortly after the playoffs, Middleton underwent surgery on his left ankle\u2026,\u201d Charania reports. \u201c\u2026 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":86330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,1608,62,3],"tags":[324,4745,4557,596],"class_list":["post-86321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bucks","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","tag-khris-middleton","tag-nba-injuries","tag-nba-offseason","tag-nba-playoffs"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}